


Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues

by persnickett



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Community: sexy_right, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-11
Updated: 2012-10-11
Packaged: 2017-11-16 02:27:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/534467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persnickett/pseuds/persnickett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt gets the Blues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues

**Author's Note:**

> Written for sexy_right's Fic Tac Toe challenge, for the prompt 'dress blues'.

Matt didn’t ask how the funeral went.  
  
He didn’t tell John how great he had looked leaving that morning; how upstanding and erect, or the way the image had stuck with him. How the straight line of his broad shoulders and the upright, formal posture and thrust of his barrel chest had hung around after the scrape of the key in the lock. Leaving Matt distracted in a way that, if he was honest, could probably be described as ‘dreamy’ – and with a sort of heavy, anticipatory precursor to a hard-on in his jeans that he kept having to make a conscious effort to keep his hands off of all day.  
  
Not that he was enough of a self-absorbed brat that he’d been expecting John to be in the mood after a fucking funeral, but maybe he’d sort of fantasized about something along the lines of John needing some cheering up after the ceremony. About this possibly being the perfect opportunity to confess that sometimes when he was alone in the apartment, he snuck into the bedroom closet to pull back the hangers and stare at the perfectly pressed ensemble hanging there in precision alignment. Sealed away in its clear plastic dry-cleaners’ bag, the sharp, iconic lines of the cap hooked over the collar like the whole kit had its head perpetually bowed in stoic contemplation.  
  
Sometimes he even let his fingers slip-slide over the plastic, imagining how the heavy cloth would feel under his fingertips without the crinkle and glide of the garment wrap in the way.  
  
He almost couldn’t picture John’s hands filling out the snow white gloves. Those hands that saved and ended lives, and knew just where to touch him, how to find the places that made him shiver and arch into their warmth when they woke him in the night to pull him closer; strong but gentle. Hands he knew the feel of against his skin right down to the last callous – on the index and middle fingertips, and the rise of John’s palm.  
  
John’s dress blues looked sexy hanging in the closet.  
  
But it was a whole different game of backgammon, when John was wearing it.  
  
It wasn’t a costume when John was wearing it. It wasn’t even a symbol, it was more. Like a statement.  
  
Literally. The meaning of the proud words _Serve_ and _Protect_ was stitched clearly into the crest on his shoulder. Each and every one of the medals that marched across his chest in a neat, tight little row, had an entire story behind it that John had never seen fit to share – and Matt belatedly realized he didn’t know whether that was because the words might be too heavy for John to say…or too damn scary for Matt to hear.  
  
The uniform made it _real_ somehow, clear in a way it had somehow never been before; the true meaning of what John did. Not on the day he saved Matt’s life a literally uncountable number of times. Not the days he rescued Lucy, the country, and possibly the world, from terror and ruin and fiery Armageddon, but what he did every _other_ day.  
  
It told silent tales of drug dealers and pimps and murdering psychopaths, the daily parade of human monsters that could make something as soul-crushing as busting up a child-prostitution ring just another day at the office.  
  
It spoke wordlessly of _why_ he did it, and why he kept on doing it – even when it cost the men and women who did it alongside him their lives …with frightening frequency.  
  
What it cost John, every time that it did.  
  
John didn’t need to say any of it out loud when he wore this. And for that – when John turned from the door and Matt saw the sombre, wearied-looking lines of his face – Matt was immediately thankful. For both of them.  
  
He suddenly didn’t care if John never heard his admission that he’d wanted to see him in this since the moment he’d first realized there was a uniform that came with the whole world-saving-badassery gig. He didn’t care if he never got to apologize that he’d somehow just never made the next step in the logic of what it would mean on the day that he finally did.  
  
He definitely didn’t want to talk about the inevitable day when somebody else would wear this for John.  
  
No. The only words that mattered were the ones he abruptly realized he wanted to be able to say to John every night. From tonight until they were both wrinkled and cranky with joints that complained when it rained, and the apartment stopped smelling of gun oil, beef lo-mein and sex, and started reeking like prunes and Ben-Gay instead.  
  
So, Matt didn’t mention the way the polished metallic buttons dug in when he pressed close and twined his arms around John’s neck, or how the way they held onto the autumn chill outside made each one a bright, sweet point of not-quite-pain through the thin cotton of his ratty old Nirvana t-shirt.  
  
He kept his thoughts to himself, when he reached up for that cap with its knife-edge lines and shiny paten leather brim that clung to his fingers in a way that told him the skin would leave prints – and suddenly made those crisp white gloves make a lot more sense – so that he could lift it carefully off of John’s head and chastely press their foreheads together.  
  
And Matt waited, until the familiar green eyes slipped gratefully closed, and the tight, weary lines around them relaxed into just the first hint of a smile, before he said it.  
  
“I’m so glad you’re home.”


End file.
